Another day, another chance to get angry about the state of UK libraries

So, KPMG came out with this report into public sector reform, and it included a review of libraries (low usage; high operating costs). The report called for giving local councils control over running their own libraries, thereby "saving large amounts of money on over-skilled paid staff, poor use of space and unnecessary stock".

I got as far as "over-skilled paid staff" before I completely lost my head. Really? What makes me livid is that no one seems to be asking WHY libraries are not being used. Perhaps some staff need different training to make them better at reaching out to the community; perhaps some are doing a fabulous job but within a straightjacket of funding constraints.

Perhaps KPMG could have, oh, I don't know, asked some people in communities about why they don't use the library? Wouldn't that be more useful than taking guesses about how to serve these communities?

Then again, given that the KPMG report keeps freezing when I download it, I can't tell if they did, anyway. I get all my news via the Guardian.